XML (=Extensible Markup Language) is a language which enables a structured description of the contents of a document to be produced by means of XML schema language definitions. A more detailed description of the XML schema and also of the structures, data types and content models used therein can be found in [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xmlschema-0-20010502/; [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xmlschema-1-20010502/ and [3] http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xmlschema-2-20010502/.
Methods for encoding XML-based documents in which the document is converted into a coded binary representation are known from the prior art. Methods for encoding and decoding XML-based documents are described for example in document [4] ISO/IEC FDIS 15938-1 “Information Technology—Multimedia Content Description Interface—Part 1: Systems”, Geneva 2002 which was produced in the course of the development of an MPEG-7 coding standard.
Current methods for generating a binary representation of XML-based documents have disadvantages when it comes to the encoding of “complex type” data types with the “mixed” content model, because in addition to elements, the data types can include textual contents which can, however, only be reconstructed by the decoding of the entire data stream. A more detailed description of the “complex type” data type and of the “mixed” content model can be found in document [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xmlschema-0-20010502/, discussed above.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system and method for encoding XML-based documents which enables easier access to coded textual contents of the “complex type” data type with the “mixed” content model.